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I’m watching Julie & Julia, the movie that started this whole blog off in the first place. I figured if Julie Powell could utilize her writing and cooking skills through a blog, that maybe I could try my hand at it too. At first, I wrote a lot about how much I loved Julia Child — her spirit, her television persona, her life. Then, I wrote complete and utter silly nonsense. All the time. I’d write a post almost every day, about the books I’d read, the things I noticed about people.I wrote sarcastic posts about boys who had rejected me. I wrote about my declining mental health. I wrote about writing. About college. The Bachelor. Rabbits. Dancing. Barney…

So when I started writing almost 7 years ago on this very site, I didn’t really expect my life to go this way. I thought I’d be a writer by now. Then I thought maybe I’d be a psychologist. Now I’m in cosmetology school, which I wouldn’t have predicted but definitely won’t complain about. Clearly this path hasn’t exactly been linear. I just…thought I’d have it all figured out by now. I’m 23, after all, and when I was 17, I trusted my future self to take care of everything.

This blog was my everything. I had a solid following, an actual subscriber base that cared about my wellbeing and loved my humor. It used to be called Writer’s Block. “You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll run kicking and screaming,” the caption at the top warned. A picture of typewriter keys occupied the banner. The web address? bymyink.wordpress.com. Now? Cappy Writes. A web address that matches the blog’s name. A picture of a packet of letters I bought at an antique shop. No tagline. A lot of sadness. Anger.

I’m not lamenting what used to be, really, so much as finally remembering. Realizing.

Obviously, I haven’t put the time and effort into blogging that I used to. At its peak, blogging was a tool to help me learn about and expand the world that I occupied. It was a way to gain support, to express myself, to hone a craft. It was pure. It meant everything to me. It was how I showed the world who I was, at a time when I thought I knew.

But the past few years haven’t been easy on me. My “mood disorder not otherwise specified” developed into generalized anxiety, a panic disorder, and depression. I was suicidal for a while when I was 18. I went through a surprisingly complicated breakup. I found Hinduism. It helped. New obstacles popped up. I got through them. I went to India. I got E. coli. I came out as bisexual. I graduated college, moved to a new city. I started cosmetology school. And through that all, the anxiety ebbed and flowed, but stayed mostly beneath the surface.

So now? I don’t know. I’m not okay, honestly. Something new is happening inside me, and I can’t understand it. I dealt with some serious depression over the summer, which is unusual for me, as it tends to stay contained within the “fall and winter seasonal affective” bubble. The panic disorder seems to have stayed away, which is one of the only things I find myself grateful for these days. The world doesn’t seem real lately, and neither do I. I’m going through the standard identity crisis that most people in their early 20s seem to experience, sure. But on top of that, some weird depersonalization/dissociation issues are cropping up. Therapy is happening. It’s rough, trying to stay afloat, stay alive, when you’re not even sure what’s going on anymore. I know all of that is vague, and I wish it could make more sense to me too. Just know that I’m dealing with it. I always do. I just don’t always know what to do anymore.

What does this all mean? In terms of this post, this blog, me, my life? I don’t know. All I know is, I got 15 minutes into watching Julie & Julia and I just got this itch to write. I’ve been cooking a lot lately, too. I’ve noticed that the worse I feel mentally, the more I cling to activities and people that used to make me feel calm and human and happy. This blog, more than anything, steadied my life when everything felt like it was going up in flames. So maybe it’s time to jump back in, ya know? To see a little humor in all the bullshit around me. To tell the world what I’m thinking, how I’m feeling. To share my story again with anyone willing to listen (and some who are very unwilling but are forced to because I’m a witch and I’ve hexed them).

So I’ll try, if you’ll help me. Your job is very simple: to show up and to read. I don’t even know how many of you are still out there, how many are new to my blog today, how many of you aren’t spam robots trolling through wordpress………

But yeah. I’ll try. No guarantees I’ll be funny, because half the time I just want to cry. But I’ll be here, writing into the abyss, for as long as you’ll have me.

Om. Spoken as three syllables. Symbolizing the beginning, duration, and dissolution of the universe. Representing Brama, Vishnu, and Shiva. The vibration of the universe. The most beautiful sound and feeling in existence, all-encompassing and absolute.

I’ve never felt more from one symbol in my life, but as I became familiar with the om symbol, I realized how much power it holds. So, yesterday, I made it a permanent part of myself. I had drawn it out several months ago, a flowing om representing the flow of the universe, and now it has become a part of me.

Yesterday, as I sat in the shop, I was so afraid — my first tattoo hurt so much, and I was worried I was making a mistake. But as I felt the vibration of the needle, heard its pulsing sound so close to my ear, I felt very little pain. During the more uncomfortable parts, I chanted the word, ‘aauumm’ in my head and relaxed, and I felt so peaceful, I practically forgot that I was feeling any pain at all. At one point, I felt on the verge of sleep. It was a beautiful few minutes.

I don’t want to make it more significant than it was, but I really think I had my first truly spiritual experience in that tattoo shop. As I write this, I cannot help but make the connection between the sound of the universe — the vibration of the om — and the sound and feeling of that tattoo gun.

There are so many reasons that I chose the om, more than I care to explain. But I know now how right I was in my decision.

It’s been about a year since I first started this blog. I can’t believe it! Through this, I’ve found myself, and it definitely helped having y’all reading!! So thank you. 47,000 hits later, I feel like I’ve truly accomplished something.

And I’m graduating. Leaving this school, going on to another, feeling really really weird about it…but I know I’ll always have this to come back to. It’s like that one place in the park that you always feel most serene at, or that amazing memory you have that you think about all the time, or that one blanket you like the most. It’s the comforting, repeating nature of this blog and this community that I’ve built around me that makes me feel so amazing and alive. And it’s made my life this past year so complete.

I found my home at school these past 4 years. I’d never felt quite right before, but I was able to become who I am today through those people I met at school who showed me it was okay to be who I am, who I want to be, who I have to be. And I’ll never forget how my life was touched these past few years, especially this one. It’s truly a wonderful life.

I don’t really have much else to say. There are always so many feelings, but never the right words to articulate them with. So I guess I just have to quote The Beatles: